The Munich Language Institute (SIM) is an institution of the Internationaler Bund (IB) e.V., which was founded in Tübingen in 1949 and is now one of the largest service providers in youth, social and educational work. The IB stands for diversity, integration and equal opportunities and is committed to supporting and promoting people of all ages in all walks of life.

From the outset, SIM focused on education and language

• From 1975 onwards, language courses for ethnic German repatriates and asylum seekers, financed by the ‘Sprachverband Deutsch für ausländische Arbeitnehmer e.V.’ (German Language Association for Foreign Workers) in Mainz, commissioned by the Federal Government
• From 1988, language and technical language courses for executives of the German Foundation for International Development (DSE) with numerous scholarship holders from all corners of the globe (from South America to Africa, from Nepal to Indonesia and the Arab countries)
• With the entry into force of the new Immigration Act in 2005, integration courses were established, which are still funded today by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), from which we received approval in the same year. Since then, we have already conducted more than 300 integration courses, in recent years mainly general IKs and youth integration courses.
• From 2007 onwards, we were awarded the contract for municipally funded job-related German courses as part of the Munich Employment and Qualification Programme (MBQ) for adults and young refugees. The participants were mainly unaccompanied minor refugees who, due to their residence status, are not allowed to take part in integration courses. We reached the highest number of participants in 2015/16, when a large number of refugees arrived in Munich following the opening of the border: a great many refugees, especially young people, were taught in the language courses financed by the city of Munich.
• 2016 also saw significant developments in the area of vocational German courses, as vocational language courses administered by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) were introduced as part of the national German language promotion programme (DeuFöV). SIM acquired the licence to run these courses and has thus been able to place greater emphasis on vocational German courses in recent years – we have already run over 70 vocational language courses since then. As part of the expansion of the BAMF's course offerings, company partnerships will be entered into in the future for so-called ‘job-oriented language courses’, which are courses tailored to the needs of individual companies or trades in order to improve communication in the workplace.
• The coronavirus pandemic that began in 2020 presented us with another major challenge, but ultimately provided an important boost for the necessary digitisation of DaZ teaching: all classrooms were equipped with internet access, laptops for lecturers and projectors, the use of learning platforms and our Moodle platform ‘IB online Academy’ with integrated video conferencing software (BigBlueButton) for online courses, and the active further training of its teachers in the use of new digital teaching materials, we now offer a first-class range of courses using state-of-the-art technology.

In addition to language teaching, SIM has also established itself as an 

• since 2002 for telc (European Language Certificates, since 2022 the telc German Test for Work, DTB)
• since 2007 g.a.s.t. (German Test for Immigration, DTZ)

The SIM has also been active in the training and further education of teachers

• since 2006: additional qualification for teachers in integration courses
• since 2020: additional qualification for teachers in vocational language courses

Over 50 years of language courses and expertise in teacher training and continuing education – this long tradition is reflected in our teaching.

Our didactic focus is on communication and situation-appropriate language use in everyday life and at work. Based on topic-oriented teaching, grammatical structures are repeatedly revisited and practised in cyclical progression in terms of their use and related meaning in linguistic interaction. We take an individual and differentiated approach to our learners in the classroom. Outside of class, there is always the option of personal consultations with our educational or social education specialists.